


John Watson and the Unlikely Alliance

by argyle4eva



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-18
Updated: 2010-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:18:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argyle4eva/pseuds/argyle4eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two young Hogwarts students, a Slytherin and a Gryffindor, strike up an unlikely friendship following a daring rescue.  Written using <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/938393.html#cutid1">this lovely artwork</a> as inspiration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Watson and the Unlikely Alliance

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write in the Pottersverse, so please forgive any errors in setting; my two lovely betas ([tealdeer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tealdeer/pseuds/tealdeer) and [Canaaan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan)) helped me immensely (in all ways) but any remaining errors, of any nature, are my own. _Mea culpa._

John noticed Sherlock early in his first year at Hogwarts: the night they were Sorted, in fact. He didn't pay much attention at the time, absorbed as he was by the happy, dizzying swirl of handshakes and back-slapping that welcomed him into Gryffindor, but it would have been hard not to register, from the corner of his eye, the unusually tall, skinny, dark-haired boy. He was so tall, even at his age, Professor McGonagall had to reach a little to place the hat on his head.

John lost sight of (and interest in) the other boy almost immediately afterward, but spotted him the next day wearing a Slytherin scarf. And that might have been that.

But it wasn't.

\--

Halfway through the first term of his third year at Hogwarts, John looked up from the notes he was studying over breakfast (there was a test in Charms that morning), and recognized the unmistakable, narrow shape seated at the farthest possible end of the Slytherin table, well away from the rest of his fellow House members. It occurred to him that the tall Slytherin (John had never quite caught his name) always seemed to be alone: striding across the grounds unaccompanied, sitting in the far back of every classroom John shared with him, spending long hours reading late at night in the library, nobody else around except a few students like John, desperately swotting up the night before an exam and completely absorbed in their own books and scrolls.

"John!" Marcus said in his ear, shaking his shoulder. "Are you listening? Ravenclaw's running a betting pool on the match this afternoon, do you want in on it? What's so interesting over _there_?" he added in disdain, nodding in the direction of the Slytherin table.

"Nothing," John said, then gestured with his spoon. "I was just wondering, what's up with him? He's always alone."

Marcus shrugged. "It's 'cos he's creepy," he said. "That's what everyone says, anyway. He's _gotta_ be bad if all the other Scalies think so, too. Look, d'you want in on the pool or not?"

Later, John caught sight of the tall Slytherin (taller than ever, after all this time) crossing to one of the other buildings, and couldn't help thinking that the other boy didn't look creepy at all, just closed off. Defensive. And maybe a little lonely.

\--

John thought he'd managed to pass the Charms test, barely. It wasn't that he didn't understand things, it was that he was terrible at taking tests, no matter how hard he drove himself to revise. No wonder he hadn't ended up in Ravenclaw (not that _that_ was any surprise).

His next class was Herbology, and there was an essay due; _that_ , he had no worries about. He liked writing, when he wasn't under the pressure of time, and he knew what he had would earn him a good grade (he'd called it, "A Study in Scarlet Pimpernel: Enhancing Second Sight With Herbal Ointments," a title he thought sounded very grown-up and grand). He was skimming the parchment looking for any last-minute mechanical errors when he heard Hydrangea Curtis' voice rising in panic behind him.

"I don't know where it is!" she was telling her friends, Gita and Astrid. "I looked everywhere last night and this morning and I couldn't find it! I didn't have time to write it all over again!"

John winced in silent sympathy. The essay was to be a large portion of their mark this term.

"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice said, just then, and John turned, thinking the comment was addressed to him.

It turned out to be the tall Slytherin, and he was talking to Hydrangea, not John, while holding out a sheaf of parchment. "I saw you leave this in the library last night, but didn't catch up in time to give it to you."

Hydrangea grabbed the pages with a squeak of relief and pleasure, which turned almost as quickly to a distrustful look. "Thank you," she told the Slytherin, grudgingly..

If he was insulted, the tall boy didn't show it; he just swept her an ironic bow before striding off to sit in his usual corner. John's eye followed his progress, and was caught along the way when he saw he wasn't the only one watching: a small knot of other Slytherin boys (including Roderick Maybelle and Wallace Mingel, both of whom John disliked with a passion) were tracking the tall boy's every move. In John's experience they were a bunch of swaggering bullies whose main goal in life was making others miserable. Roderick and Wallace both looked . . . angry.

John started to wonder exactly how Hydrangea's essay had gone missing. He thought he might have a pretty fair idea. The mystery was, if Slytherins had nicked it, why had another Slytherin just given it _back_?

\--

Irritated, John huffed as he jogged double-time across Hogwarts' deserted grounds. In the distance, he could hear the roar of the crowd gathered around the Quidditch pitch. He was in a foul mood; every single thing that could possibly have happened to delay him _had_ happened, and now he was missing the first part of the afternoon's match. He was also probably out of luck on getting a good view, too. The other Gryffindors would have tried to save a seat for him, but chances were he'd never make it through the press of watchers to reach it. He'd be sitting out in the back of beyond, squinting to make out what was happening on the pitch.

He was distracted from his grumbling thoughts by the sound of angry voices. Surprised, he stopped, hesitated, then changed direction. As he got closer, he could pick out who was speaking. One voice was Roderick Maybelle's; the other was the tall, lone Slytherin.

". . . What I want to know is, who told you where to find it?" Roderick was saying.

"Nobody told me," the tall boy said, sounding mostly bored and defiant, but John thought there was tension, even fear, in his voice. "I had no trouble deducing its hiding place. You lot are depressingly predictable."

" _You're_ gonna be depressed in a minute, you freak!"

John rounded a hedge and stopped dead; the five Slytherins in front of him all turned to look at the sound of gravel scuffing under his feet. The tall boy was backed into a corner of the hedge, corraled there by Roderick, Wallace, and two larger, older boys whose names John didn't know.

John swallowed, but there was a hint of desperation and hope in the way the tall Slytherin looked at him. It hit something deep and buried inside John, something that normally slept under a layer of spinal-reflex politeness and general good nature.

"What's going on here?" John asked, looking from one boy to another.

"Sod off, shorty," one of the older boys said. "None of your business."

His tone stiffened John's resolve, and his spine. He always stood straighter when he was angry, for what little good it did him. "I dunno," John shot back. "Four against one seems like it should be _somebody's_ business."

"Merlin, what a prissy little Gryffindor prat," the older boy scoffed. "Clear off!" He stepped in John's direction, reaching out threateningly.

John feinted, as if flinching away, then ducked forward, shouldering past the larger boy so that he was in the midst of the hostile Slytherins. _Wait, was that really what I meant to do?_ he thought belatedly, just as a large hand grabbed him by his shirt collar and spun him around, throwing him away from the confrontation and sending him tumbling to the ground. The side of John's face met the gravel walk painfully, but he wasn't stunned. He heard the scuff of footsteps behind him and in one swift movement, he rolled, drew his wand, and pointed it up at his looming attacker.

" _Petrificus Totalis!_ " he shouted, with perfect aim and pronunciation; the Slytherin froze in place.

(It was only _written_ tests that gave John trouble, especially ones he had time to think about ahead of time and work himself into a sweat over; he was quite good at _practical_ examinations. Especially pop quizzes.)

Now all the Slytherins were looking at him, and Roderick was starting to reach for his wand; John could see everything as if in slow motion. But then, out of nowhere, the tall Slytherin shouted, " _Reticulo Serpens!"_ , and his fellow House members stopped moving. They had no choice: they were instantly bound in a writhing, net-like mass of translucent, silvery serpents.

John gaped. He'd never even _heard_ of a spell like that, much less seen one. It seemed to be a surprise to the other Slytherins, too; they struggled, and their eyes bulged (silvery coils covered their mouths, keeping them from calling out, though they were making muffled yelps and squeaks). The tall Slytherin didn't stop to admire his handiwork, however. He strode around his immobilized opponents, pocketed his wand and stopped beside John, holding out a hand.

"Shall we?" he asked. Still somewhat stunned, John accepted a hand up. He wobbled briefly, steadied by the taller boy, who waited to make sure John was standing before turning to leave. John automatically followed him.

When they'd reached a sheltering gallery, John cleared his throat and spoke directly to the tall Slytherin for the first time. "Um, do we need to, er, tell anyone . . .?" he waved vaguely in the direction of their former aggressors.

The tall boy stopped and looked down at John, shaking his head. "No, the serpents will dissipate about the time your petrification spell wears off. That was well done, by the way," he said, with the start of a smile. It seemed like an expression he wasn't familiar making.

"Are you kidding?" John burst out, laughing. "That was nothing! Those snakes, they were _amazing_! How'd you do it?"

The tall boy's smile widened. "Puzzled it out from an old book; it seemed like a useful thing to know," he said.

"I'll say!" John said grinning. The expression felt a little weird; one side of his face was getting stiff, and starting to throb, but John didn't care.

The tall boy shrugged in the worst imitation of false modesty John had ever seen, even at his young age. "Wouldn't have worked if you hadn't distracted them," he said, "takes a lot of –" he waved his hand in illustration, "-- wand work to set up." Then, almost shyly, he held out his hand. "I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."

John accepted the handshake. "John Watson."

"Thank you, John." Like the smile, the words seemed unfamiliar to him, but his tone was genuine.

"You're welcome, Sherlock, old chap," John said, pompously over-formal. Joking seemed natural around Sherlock, for some reason.

"You're bleeding, you know," Sherlock said, dropping his hand and pointing to John's sore cheek. "Here, let me . . ."

Before John could respond, Sherlock had pulled a handkerchief, a small bottle of ointment, and a plaster from the pocket of his robes. He tipped a bit of ointment onto the cloth and reached for John's face. John, startled, began to pull back, but looking into Sherlock's face he saw something so painfully hopeful, so fragile, he stopped. Sherlock's face was already beginning to change, hope on the edge of shattering.

John said, almost without thinking, "What's in it?" He managed to keep his tone curious, rather than suspicious.

Sherlock blinked, and the hope was back. "Yarrow, comfrey and goldenseal root," he said, and held up his hand by way of explanation. There were several random plasters stuck to his fingers. "I'm always getting cut up, doing experiments, so I started making my own blend."

John, who'd accidentally donated more than a little blood himself on broken glass, wyvern feathers and other chancy materials, nodded. "Good mix," he said. "Very all-purpose." He wasn't lying; herbology was his favorite subject. He rather thought he might like to specialize in it someday. That or healing.

Sherlock, apparently reassured, reached for John's face again. John held still, bracing himself against the inevitable sting.

Sherlock moved quickly and efficiently, and John let him apply the plaster as well. "Thanks," he said.

"The least I could do," Sherlock told him. He slipped the handkerchief and ointment back into his pocket, then, to John's surprise, reached forward and ran his fingers through John's hair, shaking loose some grit and gravel. "There aren't many Gryffindors who would stand up for a Slytherin, you know." His hands dropped and began, almost absently, straightening the knot of John's tie.

John felt a flood of warmth spreading across his cheeks, not sure if it was a result of Sherlock's physical familiarity or his praise. "Yeah, well," he said, uncomfortable for the first time, "not many Slytherins would give back Hydrangea's essay."

Sherlock stopped fussing over John and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Ah. You overheard?"

"Yeah"

Sherlock shrugged. "I could tell the others were up to something; it was simple enough to deduce what. Once I knew what they'd stolen and where it was hidden, it seemed the best way to annoy them would be to give the stolen property back to its owner."

"You don't get on with the other Slytherins, do you?" John asked. He realized as he said it that it might be rude, but Sherlock didn't seem upset. The taller boy huffed, but derisively, not angrily.

"Puffed-up, tedious, simpleminded bullies, the lot of them," Sherlock declared. "Not one with an ounce of subtlety or originality. They think they're devious, but they're really just _boring_." He said it like it was the worst insult he could think of.

"And you're not," John said, joking again, embarrassment forgotten.

"Well, no," Sherlock said, with another of his tentative smiles. This one looked rather smug. "Obviously."

Just then, the Quidditch crowd roared in the distance, reminding John about the match. "Merlin!" he swore, " We're missing the game." He started to turn, but noticed Sherlock wasn't following. "Aren't you going?"

Sherlock hesitated. "I don't particularly feel like sitting with my fellow Slytherins, and it's not very enjoyable alone," he said, but there was a longing expression in his eyes.

"You can sit with me, then," John said, shrugging. It felt like a natural thing to say, but Sherlock looked at him like he'd sprouted a second head. John, uncertain in hindsight, felt the flush returning to his face.

Then Sherlock smiled, and this time it wasn't tentative at all. "Well, what are we waiting for, then?" he asked, and took off with long, rangy strides that he quickly shortened when John had to break into a jog to keep up.

Neither boy noticed, but an outside observer would have been surprised at how easily – and perfectly – they fell into step with one another.


End file.
